


Fire

by FiveDollarMixtape



Series: Inspiration, Repeat [3]
Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Casual Murder, Manipulation, Traveling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 15:43:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11316507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveDollarMixtape/pseuds/FiveDollarMixtape
Summary: Pool of Glistening Water was a To-Be of the Tribe of Towering Grass.  Now, she travels the world with a few other cats at her side, killing cats because her leader has told her that for every bad cat in the world, every beautiful thing she sees doesn't matter.





	Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Song- Fire by Barns Courtney

Pool of Glistening Water was just a kit, nearly a To-Be, when the strange tom arrived.

 

He was much larger than her- with pure white, silky fur and pale blue eyes, he stood out from the Tribe cats.  Pool was his polar opposite- she had black fur that had the spiky trait of Tribe cats, and green eyes that were full of the eagerness she felt to start her training and serve her Tribe.  The tom’s name was Fire- nothing more than just that.  

 

Fire was calm.  Although he got along well with the Tribe Guards, and often went with them for their training sessions, he never snapped or growled or hissed.  He spoke in a calm, soothing tone to every cat, deserving of it or not.  Pool’s littermate, a dark brown tom called Pine the Color of Obsidian, once murmured to her that he should be called Fire that Never Rages, and that was what the two started calling him.

 

Once Pool started training as a Tribe Guard, she spent more time with Fire.  The tom had become an unofficial Tribe member by then, and he had seemed to take a strange liking to Pool once their Healer, Reader of the Tall Grass, deemed her a Tribe Guard.  Pool was the only cat that he taught his own fighting moves to, and that made her the only cat in the Tribe who knew how to fight as a Tribe cat and a loner.

 

It was when she was nearly halfway through her training that Fire started speaking with her about something strange.  He told her about the parts of the world that he had seen, and that he was sorry all she would ever see were the grasslands.  At first, Pool told him that she liked the view, and when she was a kit the felt like the grasslands could fit every cat in the world.  But then Fire told her about huge cliffs where he had watched distant thunderstorms, a Twoleg Place (when asked, he said it was a place where Those Who Walk Strangely live), a mountain full of cats where he had never felt more welcome, a lake that held four different Clans who were the most hostile creatures he had ever met (he joked that they fought every moon over something or other), a cave with paintings on the wall left behind from Those Who Walk Strangely, and a group of cats who lived there that said their ancestors had amazing powers (they even showed him a cavern full of stone animals on leather cords that only gods could make), and suddenly, the grasslands seemed small and insignificant.  The Tribe was a small group of cats in the middle of many others, and based on how Fire told his stories, he would never think of them again.

 

Once, in the middle of a story about finding a two Twoleg Place that the cats who lived there said was once a mighty forest where four great Clans lived, she asked if he would ever tell stories about the Tribe of Towering Grass.  He thought for a heartbeat, before he spoke.

 

“I won’t speak of your territory, or your fighting skills, or the way you catch your prey.  Instead, I’ll speak of your culture, and of the cats I met here.”

 

That was a good enough answer for Pool.  She nodded her head, and followed along with the rest of the Tribe Guards.  

 

The next topic he spoke of was how many bad cats there were in the world.  He told her about a group of cats he had met that believed in four Gods, and that each of those four Gods demanded a sacrifice of a kit.  Those cats believed that they were saving the world- even the kits, until their dying day, thought the same.  He told her about rogues who enjoyed starting fights, and had no qualms with killing cats.  He told her of visiting a part of Twoleg Place, not far from the part that was once a forest, where he heard stories of a bloodthirsty “Clan” of rogues and former kittypets that wore the claws and teeth of their fallen victims in their collars.  Even the lake Clans that he had met knew of them- they said that they were called BloodClan, and a long time ago, the four Clans had killed their leader, killing the Clan along with them.

 

That made Pool hate the world, but Fire told her that he was going to take care of all the bad cats.  She knew that she could trust him, but how could Fire that Never Rages take care of all those evil cats and more?

 

Pool had developed a habit of looking at her own shadow when she was alone.  It mimicked her every movement- every ear flick, every tail lash, every whisker twitch was copied onto another version of herself on the ground.  She didn’t realize that even though she was surrounded by friends and family, that she was lonely.  Occasionally, she would look up at the stars and ask The Tribe of Endless Hunting for guidance, but none ever came.

 

Fire asked if she wanted to leave with him, once.  He asked if she wanted to help him to take care of all of the evil cats in the world.  She told him that she would have to think about it.

 

She told her mother, a she-cat named Moon that Wanes in Time, what Fire had asked her.  She told her to let him be- Moon had never really liked Fire, and hated the fact that Pool and the tom spent so much time together.

 

Still, in the end, Pool decided to leave with Fire.  

 

“If you ever decide to come back,” Grassreader told her, “we will welcome you.  You were born here, and you trained with us.”

 

Pool had dipped her head to her former Healer.  “Thank you, Grassreader,” she meowed, before turning tail and following after Fire as he left the Tribe.

 

She saw an ocean for the first time, and a beach that had pure white sand.  She saw a forest full of streams that was constantly throwing mist into the air.  She saw an old, stone building that a few cats called home, and let her and Fire stay with them for a few days.  These were the cats that taught Pool how to hunt.

 

“But I’m a Tribe Guard,” she had meowed to cats who didn’t understand what that meant to her.  “I don’t hunt, I fight.”

 

“You were part of a group before, yes?” a tom asked in his thick accent.  Pool nodded.

 

“You’re only with Fire now,” a she-cat told her.  “You should learn to hunt for yourself.”

 

And so, she did.  It took a while, but she became competent enough to hunt for herself.  

 

The first large group of cats they encountered wasn’t a Tribe, or a Clan- it was a group of loners.  Here, there was one leader, and the elders of the group would choose who the leader would be once that one died.  The cats in training were taught by all the cats, and their training was a matter that was carefully planned among them.  Fire told her to stay with him at all times, and she nodded her head and followed easily in his pawsteps.

 

There was one cat that Fire took a particular interest in, just like he had with Pool.  He had dark brown fur and green eyes- at first sight, he reminded her of Pine, but his personality was the polar opposite of her littermate’s.  He was loud, and headstrong, and protective, while Pine was quiet, contemplative, and caring.  The tom’s name was Spark.

 

Fire taught him fighting moves that he had learned as he traveled, just like he had done with Pool, and he gave him advice for how to improve every time he missed a catch.  Pool once told Spark that if that was what her training was like, she wasn’t sure if she would have been able to cope.  That earned her a confused look, and a question of what her training  _ was _ like.

 

Before she could answer, Fire started telling stories of cats who had long names, who had one leader who was also their healer, who choose a kit to learn from them that would take on their name once they died and lead their Tribe after them, who separated cats into hunters and fighters.  Spark looked over his shoulder at Pool.

 

“But you’re name’s just Pool,” he meowed, “That’s not very long.”

 

The black-furred she-cat blinked as she remembered how Fire introduced her to these cats-  _ My name is Fire, and this is my friend, Pool.   _ “That’s not my full name,” she told him.  “It’s Pool of Glistening Water.”

 

Spark somehow managed to blink and widen his eyes at the same time.  “Oh,” he mewed.  “Then, were you a hunter or a fighter?”

 

“I was a To-Be,” she meowed, and at his confused look, she elaborated.  “It was what we called cats in training.  I was almost done, and was going to be a full Tribe Guard, before I left with Fire.”

 

“Tribe Guard?” Spark asked.

 

“The terms for the fighters and hunters in our Tribe,” Pool couldn’t help but to purr the words ‘fighter’ and ‘hunter’, “are Tribe Guards and Prey Hunters.”

 

“Then what was your leader called?”  

 

“Grassreader was our Healer.”

 

Spark blinked and widened his eyes again.  “Your leader was called  _ Grassreader _ ?”

 

Pool nodded.  “Her full name is Reader of the Tall Grass.”

 

The group of three cats grew close.  They listened as Fire told stories of his travels, and Pool even told Spark a few of her own when Fire had told her to stay with the tom.  He particularly seemed to like the one where she learned to hunt.

 

Eventually, Fire started telling Spark about the evil cats and bad places.  Unlike Pool, this made him angry- his claws tore into the ground and his tail lashed, anger flaring in his eyes.  When Fire asked him to travel with him and Pool, he didn’t hesitate to say yes.  The cats gave a goodbye to the group of loners, and went on their way.

 

Pool looked at Spark carefully, and saw a cat that could start a movement if he wanted, but he didn’t- instead, he chose to follow Fire.  So, she started calling him Spark of Unknown Greatness.  

 

Pool and Spark saw their first castle, sea shell, and the skull of Those Who Walk Strangely together.  Fire had already seen all these things, but he told the two that their excitement made him feel like he was seeing them for the first time, too.  They saw hill full of wooden crosses so tightly packed that they couldn’t weave their way through, they padded through a place full of stones with engravings on them- from a distance, the three cats watched as a group of Those Who Walk Strangely wore all black and lowered a box into the ground, not caring about the rain wetting their fur.

 

“That’s weird,” Spark meowed.

 

“Twolegs are weird,” Fire responded, his tail curled elegantly around his paws.

 

“Twolegs?” Spark asked, turning his head to look at the white tom.  “Those are No Furs.”

 

“We called them Those Who Walked Strangely,” Pool meowed.  She tilted her head.  “I think one of them is in the box,” she mewed.

 

“Are they killing it?” Spark asked, turning his attention back to Those Who Walk Strangely.

 

“I don’t think so,” Fire meowed.  “I think it was already dead.”

 

“So this is a funeral,” Pool mewed.  The group watched as the larger creatures left, then they padded up to the hole in the ground.  Behind a stone, one of them watched the three cats as they stared down at the box before the three left.

 

Finally, the three found a rouge.  Her fur was russet, as if it was evidence of all the cats Fire was sure she had killed right there on her pelt.  Without flinching, Fire turned to look at Pool.

 

“Kill her.”

 

“What?” the rogue asked, unsheathing her claws.  Pool only nodded, stalking forward.  Behind her, she heard Spark try to come with her and help, but Fire held him back.

 

“I want you to watch how Pool fights,” he meowed.  “Remember that she was trained only to fight before she left her Tribe.”  

 

Pool let the rogue attack first, unsheathed claws and bared fangs quickly coming her way.  She dropped to the ground and rolled, quickly getting back to her paws and leaping onto her back, her claws digging into the skin and ripping, exposing blood and muscle.  The cat under her screeched, rolling onto her back, but Pool let go just before she was crushed under her weight and rolled away once more.  With the rogue still on her back, the black she-cat raced forward and scored her claws across her neck, turning her head to watch as the blood flowed from the wound.  Slowly, but surely, the bleeding stopped.

 

Spark was impressed with her fighting skills, and begged her to teach her  _ some _ kind of Tribe fighting move.  Every time she refused, shaking her head and telling him that the way he fought was just fine.

 

The next group of cats they met was in the first Twoleg Place that Pool and Spark ever went to- the buildings were large and towered far above even Those Who Walked Strangely’s heads, and they didn’t seem to care about a group of cats racing away from them.  Even Fire admitted to never being in a Twoleg Place this large or active before.  They found the group of cats, who called themselves Star Seekers, when they traveled underground.  They lived next to a railway, and every other entrance like the one they had entered (the Star Seekers told them it was called a Subway Station by Those Who Walk Strangely, and that giant monsters like the ones they saw on the Thunderpaths used to travel on the rails) was busy, but the cats told them this one was abandoned.  

 

The culture here was something that Pool had to get used to.  They had two word long names, and didn’t shorten them.  They had a similar system to the Tribe, as they would separate cats by “Hunters” (here, they were called Gatherers, and brought back whatever they could find that looked somewhat edible) and Fighters, and each of those groups had a leader.  Stranger still, was that those two leaders had a leader- while there was no retiring, the oldest cat in the Star Seekers would take on a physically easier life as leader.  There were two Healers, each with their own Trainee, and unlike in the Tribes where every cat in the divided groups helped with training, a cat was assigned a mentor to help them train.

 

Here, Fire set his sights on two cats- one was a she-cat, with brown and white fur in a tabby pattern and golden eyes.  She was excitable, happy, and passionate about everything she did.  Her name was Fallen Sky.  Her littermate was a pure brown tom, with amber eyes.  He was quiet, and had a gloomy air around him, but he was just as passionate about the thing he did as his sister was.  His name was Crow’s Lament.

 

Fire let Pool and Spark socialize on their own here, as long as the two stayed together.  Both of them gravitated towards the Fighters, and Pool told them about where she had come from.

 

“So Pool isn’t your name?” One of them, a she-cat that she thought was named Flaming Heart, meowed.  With an ear flick and a burst of frustration, Pool remembered that she had been introduced as only ‘Pool’ again.

 

“It is, but it’s only part of it,” Spark explained.  

 

“My full name is Pool of Glistening Water.”  With a purr, she looked at Spark.  “I like to call you Spark of Unknown Greatness.”

 

Spark blinked and widened his eyes.  “Really?” Pool nodded.  “What do you call Fire?”

 

“Me and my littermate called him Fire that Never Rages.”

 

One of the young Trainees who was listening to her perked his ears.  With a heartbeat of thought, Pool remembered his name was Rain Feather.  “What’s your littermate’s name?”

 

“Pine the Color of Obsidian,” she meowed.  “He looked a lot like Spark, actually.”

 

Rain Feather made a habit of following the two outsiders around.  When he went out for training, he invited them out to show them how great Twoleg Place could be, and they would usually accept.  When Rain Feather was practicing fighting moves his mentor had taught him the day before, the two would give him advice, or show him moves from Spark’s loner group or from the Tribe.  Whenever Pool showed Rain Feather a Tribe fighting move, Spark would pay more attention than Pool thought he ever had in his life.

 

Occasionally, Fire would take Pool and Spark out into the Twoleg Place by himself.  Rain Feather would ask to come with them, but Fire only shook his head, and told him that he wouldn’t take him out without his mentor’s permission.  Whenever they did this, Fire’s followers knew that they were on the hunt for rogues and other evil cats.  They would always return to the camp of the Star Seekers with bloody claws, some wounds, and at least one dead cat in their wake.  No cat asked any questions, though- getting into fights with other cats was a common occurrence, and the Healers kindly lent them the herbs needed to heal them.  One of the Trainees, a she-cat named Melted Ice, was surprised to know that Pool and Spark knew nothing about healing and quickly taught them the basics.

 

It was on one of these outings, when they were returning to the Star Seekers den, that Fire spoke about leaving.

 

“Fallen Sky is ready to leave, and if she’ll leave, so will Crow’s Lament.”  The tom looked over his shoulder at the two cats behind him.  “I think that Rain Feather may ask to come with us, as well.  Tell him we’re leaving.”

 

The two cats dipped their head to the cat that had become their leader.  “Yes, Fire,” they meowed.

 

They told Rain Feather they were leaving once they woke up the next day.  He thought for a long few heartbeats, before he nodded.  

 

They left soon after.  The leader of the Star Seekers, Hawk Wing, stared at Fire as the three Trainees made the announcement that they were leaving with him.  “You did this before,” he croaked.  “With Pool and Spark.”

 

“What does it matter?” Fire had asked.  “Three of your cats have decided to travel with me, and I am willing to take them.”

 

Hawk Wing narrowed his eyes, and Pool didn’t like the look they held.  “With the manipulation you did, I’m not surprised if they’d run away from us to stay with you.”  He raised his head higher as he looked at the Trainees.  “You are welcome to leave, and when your travels turn sour, you will be welcomed back.”

 

Fire turned tail and started to leave, his new followers on his tail and Spark close behind, but Pool hesitated.  She dipped her head to Hawk Wing.  “Thank you for allowing us to stay as long as we did, Hawk Wing.”

 

“Your path  _ will _ turn sour,” he warned.  “When it does, I invite both you and Spark to join us as well.”

 

Pool shook her head.  “I have a secure place waiting for me with my Tribe,” she assured.  “I am well taken care of if anything goes wrong.”

 

“ _ When _ something goes wrong,” Hawk Wing corrected.  Instead of responding, Pool turned tail and bounded after Fire and the rest.

 

Coming up with a Tribe name for Rain Feather was easy- she had spent so much time with him, after all.  The name Rain that Clings to Feather stuck with the tom.  For Fallen Sky and Crow’s Lament, it was harder.

 

Fallen Sky was easily excitable, and had the energy of one hundred cats- Fallen Sky itself wasn’t a name that seemed to fit her.  Still, she decided that Energy that Fell From Sky fit with the she-cat.  Crow’s Lament was a gloomy, dark tom- while Crow’s Lament was a name that fitted him just fine, Lamenting Crow Found at Dusk fit even better to Pool.  Still, even though she didn’t know them, she would never forget the look on their faces as they saw stars for the first time.

 

Another problem occurred with the fact that Fallen Sky was a Hunter.  Fire told Pool to train her in fighting, and he told Fallen Sky to teach Crow’s Lament and Rain Feather how to hunt.  Every day, Pool found time to pull Fallen Sky aside and teach her a fighting move or two, and this was when she learned how important it was that Grassreader got Tribe Guards and Prey Hunters right.

 

For the fast and leaping moves that had taken Pool ages to learn, Fallen Sky easily picked them up.  For everything else, she was clumsy, not sure where to place her paws, and weak.  Still, Pool was patient, Fallen Sky was passionate, and it gave the two she-cats more time to learn about each other.  Fallen Sky was one of the cats who didn’t know about the Tribe, so Pool told her about it.  When the younger she-cat learned Pool’s full name, she meowed “and I thought my name was long!”

 

Crow’s Lament was still a mystery to her, but both Spark and Rain Feather told her that he was creepy.

 

They saw a beach with black sand, and another that had only sea shells.  They saw tall, towering statues of Those Who Walk Strangely.  In a much, much smaller mountain side Twoleg Place than the one that Fallen Sky, Crow’s Lament, and Rain Feather were from, they watched and played as millions of colored flower petals fell from the sky, not caring about the blood that stained Crow’s Lament and Rain Feather’s claws.  Once, they saw a tree that had pink and orange leaves, even though it was the middle of the summer.

 

The next group of cats they met was a Clan, and Fire’s followers were once again allowed to socialize on their own while he set his sights on a gray she-cat with black paws, ears, and tail and blue eyes.  Her name was Cloverpaw- she was quiet, smart, and introspective.

 

They didn’t spend as much time here as Fire had spent at the Tribe, or that they had spent at Spark’s group, or that they had spent at Star Seekers.  As it turned out, Cloverpaw wasn’t a big fan of the Clans, and she had always wanted to travel- getting to take care of all the bad in the world was just a bonus to her.  Pool started calling her Clover that Wanders Across Worlds.

 

They saw a large tree that took the cats seventeen heartbeats to run around, and was so tall that they couldn’t see the top of it even when Spark and Cloverpaw tried to climb the trees around it.  Fallen Sky, who hadn’t climbed a tree in her life, unsheathed her claws, yowling “I’m gonna climb it!” before Pool sunk her teeth into her scruff to keep her on the ground.  Crow’s Lament looked disappointed that he couldn’t watch his sister fail.  They saw a forest full of dark, leafless trees that let beams of golden sunlight pass through them.  During the day, though, the dark trees were contrasted by the bright green grass.  On quite a few nights where they had traveled north, they saw lights in the sky that changed colors and seemed to be dancing.  Fire told them that he had seen them before when he was with the cats that believed their ancestors had powers- they said that the lights were their ancestors dancing.

 

The next group they met, to Pool’s delight, was another Tribe.  They lived underground, with becoming masters of navigating tunnels.  Instead of Tribe Guards, they had Cave Guards.  To make Pool even happier, Fire let her take the lead on speaking to them.

 

When they first met the Tribe cats, evident by their names and the way they introduced themselves, Pool nearly jumped out of her fur with excitement.  She nudged Spark with her shoulder, and he purred at the look in her eyes.  Fire flicked his tail at her, urging her forward, and whispered for her to introduce them.

 

She put one paw in front of herself and dipped her head, an action she hadn’t been able to do in so long and one that made her feel like the was back in the grasslands that she thought of so fondly and with the cats she missed so much, and spoke.  “My name is Pool of Glistening Water,” she meowed, and she pointed to the other cats with her tail.  “This is our leader, Fire, and the rest of our cats are Spark, Rain Feather, Fallen Sky, Crow’s Lament, and Cloverpaw.”

 

“Pool of Glistening Water?” a tom that introduced himself as Mountain Looming over Sea asked.  “Isn’t that a Tribe name?”

 

Pool nodded.  “I come from the Tribe of Towering Grass, a Tribe in a place far away from here.  I was a To-Be, training to become a Tribe Guard, when I left to travel the world with Fire.”

 

“A truly brave choice, I imagine,” a she-cat called Root of Many Legends meowed.  “Come, Tunnelteller would love to meet you.”  

 

“Tunnelteller?” Cloverpaw had asked as they Pool fell behind the Tribe cats, letting them lead the way through the tunnels they knew so well.  “That sounds more like a Clan name.”

 

“Pool’s Healer was called Grassreader, but her full name was Reader of the Tall Grass,” Fire meowed.  “It seems that only Healers in the Tribes have names like Clan cats.”

 

“Why is that?” Rain Feather asked, looking at Pool.

 

“Their names describe what they do,” she meowed.  “Grassreader read the grass to look for signs from The Tribe of Endless Hunting, so I guess that Tunnelteller looks to the tunnels to speak with his ancestors.”

 

Fallen Sky hummed in response, and the group was silent for the rest of the journey.

 

Tunnelteller was an old tom, with his To-Be at his side at all times to help him when needed.  His fur was a blue-gray color, and the fur around his muzzle was silver.  “I heard that we might be getting visitors,” he meowed.

 

“From who?” Crow’s Lament asked.  

 

“The Tribe of Endless Hunting,” his To-Be meowed.  “Their messages are quite clear.”

 

“Who’s that?” Cloverpaw whispered to Pool.

 

“Tunnelteller’s To-Be, I think,” she whispered back.  

 

The To-Be turned his dark eyes to Pool, and she felt like her soul was being stared at.  “They also said-”

 

Tunnelteller cut him off.  “That a Tribe cat would be with them,” he meowed.  Pool introduced herself once more to the two cats.

 

“I am Teller of the Swirling Tunnels, and this is my To-Be, Dew that Clings to Grass.”  Dew dipped his gray head, blue eyes closed.

 

Fire stepped forward.  “I am the leader of these travelers,” he meowed.  “My name is Fire.”

 

Tunnelteller’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he dipped his head anyway.  “It’s a group I would be proud of.”

 

Here, while the others were allowed to be on their own, Pool was told to stay with Fire at all times.  He had his sights set on a black tom with green eyes- one that Pool imagined looked a lot like herself.  His name was Fawn Lost in Forest.  He was proud and eager, yet quiet.  Pool watched as Fire went with him on his Prey Hunter training (and was glad that she wasn’t subjected to that kind of boredom), and listened as he told stories of his travels.  He even put in some stories that the group had had- the one where Pool, Spark, and himself were at a funeral for Those Who Walk Strangely, when Fallen Sky tried to climb the giant tree, when they saw the lights of dancing ancestors.  

 

It was when Pool knew that Fire was going to start talking about rogues and evil cats that she was called into Tunnelteller’s and Dew’s den for the first time.  When Fire tried to follow, Tunnelteller meowed “ _ Just  _ Pool.”  She was surprised that Fire was glaring, and even more surprised that she could feel it trained on the Healer as she padded into the toms den.

 

The three cats settled in the den, and Pool looked at the large hole in the ceiling that was letting in light from outside.  It didn’t take long for her eyes to adjust, but it was nice to see grass and sunlight again.

 

“Your cats have been here for a while,” Tunnelteller began.  “They already know Tribe culture from you, so why are you here?”

 

Pool shook her head, even though she knew- she could only assume that Tunnelteller wouldn’t be too thrilled about the fact that Fire was trying to steal one of his cats away.  “That’s something Fire is keeping to himself.”

 

“But Fire trusts you, doesn’t he?” Dew asked, tilting his head.  “You haven’t left his side since you got here.”

 

_ I don’t think that’s because he trusts me, _ she thought.   _ I think that’s because he thinks I might leave his group of I’m around Tribe cats too long. _  “Fire keeps many things to himself,” she told them, curling her tail around her paws.  “He’s a good tom; I think he worries that I may get homesick if I’m around Tribe cats too long,” she meowed instead of what she was thinking.

 

“What have you gotten from traveling with Fire?” Tunnelteller asked.  “He seems to be gaining more than his followers.”

 

“It’s a lot of things,” Pool meowed.  “It would take a while for me to tell you.”

 

“We don’t care,” Dew told her.  

 

And so, she spoke.  From beginning to end, she spoke of how at first it was just her and Fire.  She told them about the beach with pure white sand, and her first time seeing an ocean.  She told them about the old stone building, and the cats who lived there who taught her to hunt.  She told them about meeting the group that Spark was originally a part of, and how he joined them.  She told them about the castle, the sea shell, the skull of Those Who Walk Strangely.  She told them about the wooden crosses, and the funeral.  She told them about the Twoleg Place where they found the Star Seekers (explaining that that was where Fallen Sky, Crow’s Lament, and Rain Feather were from), and about the black sand beach and the sea shell beach.  She told them about the colorful petals and the two amazing trees she had seen (and the Clan Cloverpaw was from in between), and the beautiful forest.  Finally, she told them about the dancing lights, and then how they ended up at the Tribe.

 

She left out the killing she had done along the way.

 

The toms looked at each other.  “That’s a lot of things,” Dew meowed.  

 

“Was all that worth leaving your home for?” Tunnelteller asked, his tail flicking.  

 

Pool blinked, her jaw opening and closing as the thought.  She had met amazing cats, witnessed strange cultures (she’d even seen a warrior ceremony at Cloverpaw’s Clan), and seen amazing things as she traveled with Fire and the others.  Spark, Rain Feather, Falling Sky, Crow’s Lament, and Cloverpaw were all her friends.  Well, she guessed that Crow’s Lament was a friend by association.

 

But was killing cats worth all that?

 

Quickly she reminded herself that she was cleansing the world- Fire was sure of it, and so was she and the rest of Fire’s cats.  All of them had blood on their paws.

 

“Y-yes,” Pool mewed, not being able to stop the stutter.  “It was.”  She rose to her paws, dipping her head to the two cats and padding out of the den.  When she met Fire, he asked why she was with them for so long, and what they talked about.  She told him that they asked why she and the others traveled with him, so she told them about all the things she had seen.

 

“But not about the rogues?” he hissed, his eyes blazing.  Pool nodded.  He relaxed, and apologized for hissing at her, before he led her to the den the Tribe was letting them stay in.

 

The next morning, Pool woke to the sound of Fallen Sky speaking.

 

“-And I tried to climb it, but Pool held me back cause I hadn’t climbed a tree before, or  _ whatever _ \- oh! And there was also this time where we were in a Twoleg Place by a mountain, and it was raining a bunch of different colors of flower petals, and we all started chasing them!  That was where we-”

 

“Don’t,” Crow’s Lament cold and calm voice cut in.  “Fire doesn’t want us talking about that, remember?”

 

“Oh, right, sorry,” Fallen Sky meowed.  Pool rose to her paws, yawning, shaking out her fur and padding out of the den.  In the camp, she saw Fallen Sky and Crow’s Lament speaking with Dew.  She narrowed her eyes, her tail lashing.  Dew’s blue eyes raised to meet her green ones, and he dipped his head in goodbye to the two former Star Seekers before he padded back towards the Healer’s den.  Pool padded towards the two.

 

“You know, Fallen Sky,” she meowed, “there’s supposed to be this little voice in your head that sometimes tells you ‘no’.  It’s called self-preservation instinct, and I don’t think you have one.”

 

“What do you mean?” the she-cat asked.

 

“Tunnelteller and Dew are looking into us,” she meowed.  “They called me into their den yesterday to ask what I got from traveling with Fire.”  She lowered her voice and her head.  “Whatever you do, don’t. Talk. About. The. Rogues.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am!” Fallen Sky meowed, flicking an ear, while Crow’s Lament just nodded.

 

Later that day, Fire told Fawn about BloodClan, while Pool watched as Dew interrogated Rain Feather and Spark.  A few days later, while Fire was telling Fawn about the Clan of cats who sacrificed kits, Dew started to pad up to them.  Pool tapped her tail on Fire’s paw, and he moved his attention towards the Healer.  

 

The gray tom payed Fire no mind as he asked Pool if he could show her something on the Tribe’s territory.  Pool glanced at Fire, who murmured to her not to trust him and she looked back at the Healer and nodded.  

 

The two left the Tribe’s camp and made their way through the tunnels.  Although Pool was getting to know them fairly well at this point, she let Dew lead the way through them, before he leapt up to the surface.  Once Pool was there with him, she took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air that was so hard to get in the tunnels.  Dew only purred at her, a sound that made her perk her ears as she hadn’t heard that from him before.  He only turned tail and led her away from the tunnel entrance, but while he easily leapt over a gap where the earth quickly went several feet down then came back up, Pool slipped in.

 

Dew looked over the edge at her, a smile on his face as he purred at her.  “Are you alright?” he asked.

 

Pool shot him a look.  “Just get me out of here,” she growled.  After a few minutes, Pool had successfully maneuvered out of the gap.  She shook out her ruffled fur and raised her head, but Dew was still purring at her.  He flicked her shoulder with the tip of his tail- an act that she was surprised he would even think about doing, and started padding away once more.  Pool bounded after him.

 

Eventually, they arrived at a river, which was disappointing for Pool.  She had seen many rivers- this one was calm, and even though the sound of the current was relaxing, it wasn’t memorable.  But Dew padded upstream, and she followed him.  Eventually, she saw where he was going.

 

Stones jutted out from the shallow water, but here the current was so fast the water was white with foam as it rushed around them.  The land was sloping downwards, making it a waterfall, and adding to the water’s speed.  Dew leapt onto a rock, then another, and another, until he got to one of the largest boulders in the middle of the river.  “Come on!” he called.  “It’s not hard!”

 

Nervously, Pool bunched her muscles and leapt, her paws clinging to the stone under her.  Then, she leapt again, and again, and again, until she nearly ran into Dew.  The Healer helped her steady herself, and the two sat and watched the water.  

 

“This is the best place on the territory,” Dew meowed.  “It is to me, anyways.”

 

“This is somewhere I’d remember,” Pool meowed.  Turning her eyes to the dark green grass, she spoke again.  “It’s somewhere I’d tell other cats about.”

 

“I’m glad to hear it,” he told her.  

 

Looking down at her paws, Pool found herself looking at her shadow again.  Her ear flicked, and its ear flicked.  Her tail lashed, and its tail lashed.  Her whiskers twitched, and its whiskers twitched.  She realized with a start that she had left so many ghosts behind her, both living and dead, that it was impossible to count- there were so many cats that she had met that she hadn’t thought about, and so many that she had killed.  Cats that had a voice that were dead now because of her.

 

“Can I tell you something?” Dew asked.  Pool let out a hum and nodded.  “You seem lonely.”

 

Pool thought for a heartbeat.  “Maybe I am,” she admitted.  “Maybe all of us- even Falling Sky are.”  Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Dew’s eyes softened.

 

It was a few days after that that she had her first doubts.  Were she and the others really making the world better? There were so many amazing places that they had seen, and one of the things Fire told them was that for every bad cat, one great place they’ve seen doesn’t matter anymore.  And so she killed them- she killed rogues, and cats in Twoleg Place that had done things that would make BloodClan shameful.  Does killing a bad cat making killing right?

 

She shook her head- Fire  _ was _ right.  He  _ had  _ to be.

 

The next time she had doubts, it was when Dew had licked her on the ear, and Cloverpaw and Fallen Sky jumped on the teasing opportunity.  While Pool’s ears had warmed and she kept telling them to shut up, and Spark and Rain Feather said that any cat that was going to be Pool’s mate had to have their approval, Fire looked murderous.  

 

_ Would he really kill a cat just to keep my loyalty? _ Pool thought.

 

_ Yes, he would, _ a voice inside her said.

 

She shook her head, erasing the thoughts from her mind.

 

The last time he had doubts was when Fire said that they were leaving.  He told them that Fawn was ready to join them, and that they would be leaving soon.  Pool thought about the tom standing over the body of a familiar looking russet she-cat- the first cat she had killed- with blood covering his paws.  She didn’t like thinking about it.

 

When Fire told Tunnelteller and Dew that they were leaving, Fawn announced that he was leaving with them.  

 

“So this is what you do,” Tunnelteller spoke after a few silent heartbeats.  “You manipulate cats into joining you.”

 

“Fawn has chosen to join me and my followers,” Fire meowed.  “It doesn’t matter what you think.”

 

“It does,” Tunnelteller meowed.  “You are on our territory, you have eaten our prey, and Fawn is a cat of our Tribe.”

 

“I’m joining Fire,” Fawn meowed.

 

“Fire made you think you want to join him,” Dew meowed.  “It happened to them-” he flicked his tail at Pool, Spark, Fallen Sky, Crow’s Lament, Rain Feather, and Cloverpaw, “too.”

 

“No, it didn’t,” Fire meowed.

 

“He just told us he was going to get rid of all the bad in the world!” Fallen Sky meowed.  Spark raised a paw and cuffed her around the ear.

 

“Remember that talk we had?” Pool hissed.  “About the little voice that says ‘no’?”

 

“Yeah,” Fallen Sky meowed, in a voice that sounded sad.  “You said I didn’t have one.”

 

Dew padded up to Fire’s followers.  “What did he tell you?” he asked.  “No cat will hurt you if you tell me.”

 

“Fire’s our leader,” Cloverpaw growled.  

 

“He’s helping us take care of all the evil cats in the world,” Crow’s Lament meowed, licking a paw.

 

Fire let out a growl from the other side of the cave.  With a flash of nostalgia, Pool remembered when Pine first called him Fire that Never Rages.   _ Oh, Pine, _ she thought,  _ look at how wrong we were. _

 

“You can tell me,” Dew meowed, looking at the six cats in front of him.  His eyes lingered on Pool for the longest, and she spoke.

 

“He said for every beautiful thing we saw, every bad cat in the world made it worthless,” she mewed quietly.

 

“And that all of us were helping the world,” Spark added.

 

“He told us about all the good stuff first,” Cloverpaw meowed.  “I really liked the one about the cave with paintings in it, that had a cavern full of stone animals on leather cords, and how the cats there believed that their ancestors had powers.”

 

“Then he told us about BloodClan, and the Clan that sacrifices kits to Gods, and how rogues would kill cats for no reason,” Rain Feather meowed.

 

“You’ve killed cats, haven’t you?” Tunnelteller asked.  The only answer he got was the shame in Pool’s lowered head and ears, the shame in Sparks slumped shoulders, the disappointment in himself that was radiating off of Rain Feather, the unusual sadness from Fallen Sky, the shame and disappointment covering every inch of Cloverpaw, and the unbreaking stare from Crow’s Lament.  That was answer enough for the Tribe, as murmurs broke out among them.  Pool couldn’t bring herself to lift her head.

 

“Escort Fire off of our territory,” Tunnelteller ordered.  Pool heard more than saw a group of Cave Guards surround the white tom, and he left the camp shooting glares over his shoulder.  “You six are welcome to stay,” he added.

 

“But they’ve killed cats!” a voice yowled.

 

“And they feel shame,” Dew meowed back.  “They thought they were doing good then, and now they feel differently.  Come on,” he added the second part in a lower voice, leading the six cats to the den they had shared with Fire.  Each of them looked at the Healer’s To-Be for a few heartbeats, before he leaned forward to lick Pool between the ears before he bounded back towards Tunnelteller.  No cat felt in the mood for teasing her as they went to their nests, pausing first to pull them as far away from Fire’s empty one as they could before they fell asleep.

 

It took time for them to recover.  Fallen Sky told Pool that she wished she had never taught her to fight, but she was never mad about it.  Rain Feather thought about the Subway Station, and the tall buildings of Twoleg Place that the Star Seekers lived in.  He told Pool, Spark, and Cloverpaw that they were called Star Seekers because the cats lived their before the Twoleg Place was there.  They weathered the construction of the Twoleg Place, and moved into the Subway from an alleyway as soon as it was abandoned.  They adjusted to life, but one thing they would never stop missing was the stars.  Cloverpaw thought about her mentor- she told them that she had had two- her first one died from an illness when she was starting her training, and the second was the one she had when she left.  Spark thought about how every cat in his group thought about his training, and every cat acknowledged how important it was that every cat in training be taught right.  Pool told them about how once, she had tried to go hunting with Pine, and she caused him to miss every catch, but he never got mad at her for it, even when the older Prey Hunters yelled at him for bringing nothing back.  None of them knew what Crow’s Lament was thinking.

 

But, slowly, they got better.  Dew made a point to spend more time with Pool.  Fallen Sky started joining the Prey Hunters on nearly every patrol.  Rain Feather and Spark taught the young To-Be Cave Guards moves that they had learned when they were part of the loner group and Star Seekers, Cloverpaw was spending a lot of time with a she-cat Prey Hunter, and Crow’s Lament had found a tom in the Cave Guards he got along with nicely.  

 

Eventually, they had come to an agreement to join the Tribe.

 

Pool died old, after Dew (then Tunnelteller), Spark, and Fallen Sky, but before Cloverpaw, Rain Feather, and Crow’s Lament.  When she joined the Tribe of Endless Hunting, she was surprised to find that Pine’s was the first face she saw.


End file.
